The Nilotic Egyptian race, of composite ethnical character, presents striking elements of comparison, in the ingenious arts and constructive skill of the ancient dwellers in the Nile valley; but whether we take the Egyptian of the Catacombs, the Copt, or the Fellah, we seek in vain for like microcephalous characteristics. Among modern races the Chinese exhibit many analogies in arts and social life to the ancient Peruvians; but their cerebral capacity presents no correspondence to that of the American race. Dr. Morton gives a mean capacity for the Chinese skull of 85, as compared with the Peruvian 75.3, while Dr. Davis derives from nineteen skulls a mean internal capacity of 76.7 oz. av., or 93 cubic inches.
But another Asiatic race, that of the Hindoos—also associated with a remarkable ancient civilisation, and a social and religious organisation not without suggestive analogies both to ancient Egypt and Peru,—is noticeable for like microcephalous characteristics. In completing the anatomical measurements with which Dr. Morton closes his great work, he places the Ethiopian lowest in the scale of internal capacity of cranium; but, while including the Hindoo in his Caucasian group, he adds: “It is proper to mention that but three Hindoos are admitted in the whole number, because the skulls of these people are probably smaller than those of any other existing nation. For example, seventeen Hindoo heads give a mean of but 75 cubic inches.”[[186]] The Vedahs of Ceylon, the Mincopies, the Negritos, and the Bushmen, appear to vie with the Hindoos in smallness of skull; but all of them are races of diminutive stature. This element, therefore, which has been referred to as important in individual comparisons, is no less necessary to be borne in view in determining such comparative results as those which distinguish the Peruvians from other American races. Certain races are unquestionably distinguished from others by difference of stature. Barrow determined the mean height of the Bushman, from measurements of a whole tribe, to be 4 ft. 3½ in. D’Orbigny, from nearly similar evidence, states that of the Patagonians to be 5 ft. 8 in. The internal capacity of the Peruvian skull, as derived from eighteen male and six female Quichua skulls in Dr. Davis’s collection, is 70, while he states that of the Patagonian skull as 67 and of the Bushman as 65; but it is manifest that the latter figures, if taken without reference to relative stature, furnish a very partial index of the comparative volume of brain.
Professor Goodsir, as already noted, held that symmetry of brain has more to do with the higher faculties than mere bulk. In the case of the Peruvians the systematic distortion of the skull precludes the application of this test. But in the small Hindoo skull the fine proportions have been repeatedly noted. Dr. Davis, in describing one of a Hindoo of unmixed blood, born in Sumatra, says: “His pretty, diminutive skull is singularly contrasted with those of the races by whom, alive, he was surrounded”;[[187]] and he adds: “The great agreement of the elegant skulls of Hindoos in their types and proportions, although not in dimensions, with those of European races, has afforded some support to that widespread and learned illusion, ‘the Indo-European hypothesis.’ The Hindoo skulls are generally beautiful models of form in miniature.”
Mr. Alfred R. Wallace, in his Malay Archipelago, discusses the value of cranial measurements for ethnological purposes; and, employing those furnished by Dr. J. B. Davis in his Thesaurus Craniorum as a “means of determining whether the forms and dimensions of the crania of the eastern races would in any way support or refute his classification of them,” he finally selected as the best tests for his purpose—1. The capacity of the cranium; 2. The proportion of the width to the length taken as 100; 3. The proportion of the height to the length taken as 100. But here again, unfortunately, the systematic distortion of the Peruvian skull limits us to the first of those tests. There are, indeed, the eleven normal Peruvian crania selected as such from the numerous Ancon skulls brought by Professor Agassiz from Peru. But those are stated by Professor Wyman to be on an average less by six inches than the ordinary skull. Some partial results embodied in the following table admit of comparison with those based on the more ample data of [Table X.] Dr. Lucae, in his Zur Organischen Formenlehre, gives the cranial capacity of single skulls of different races, selected as examples of each. In these, as in others already referred to, the capacity was determined with peas; and the results—assumed to be given in Prussian ounces,—are dealt with here, as in the skulls of Heinse and Bünger. The experiments carried on for the purpose of testing the process fully confirmed the results stated by Professor Wyman as to the differences in apparent cubical capacity according to the material employed. Taking a sound Huron Indian skull, a mean internal capacity of 1490 grms. was obtained by repeatedly gauging it with peas, and of 1439.5 with rice. The position of the Negro, heading the list, serves to show the exceptional nature of the evidence; though this is rather due to the inferiority of other examples, such as the Chinese and Greenlander, than to its capacity greatly exceeding the Negro mean. In the first column the unzen, as Prussian ounces, are rendered in grammes. The second column gives the nearer approximation to the true specific gravity, according to the standard referred to, based on a series of experiments carried out under my direction in the laboratory of the University of Toronto, and assuming 82.5 grms. of peas to occupy the space of 100 grms. of water. The third and fourth columns represent the estimated brain-weight, after the requisite deductions, on the basis of s.g. of brain as 1.0408.
TABLE IX
LUCAE
| Internal | Internal Cap. | Brain-Weight. | Brain- | |
| Capacity. | Corrected. | Grms. | weight. | |
| Grms. | Grms. | Oz. Av. | ||
| Negro | 1169.28 | 1424.12 | 1281.71 | 45.2 |
| Chinese | 1081.58 | 1364.48 | 1228.04 | 43.4 |
| Nubian | 1041.24 | 1313.54 | 1182.19 | 41.7 |
| Floris | 1033.93 | 1304.38 | 1173.94 | 41.4 |
| Papuan | 1030.42 | 1299.95 | 1169.96 | 41.3 |
| Greenlander | 1023.12 | 1290.74 | 1161.67 | 41.0 |
| Javanese | 995.06 | 1254.54 | 1129.91 | 39.8 |
In the following table the examples are derived from Dr. J. B. Davis’s tables, with the exception of the Peruvians. For these I have availed myself of Dr. Jeffreys Wyman’s careful observations on the large collection in the Peabody Museum, the results of which confirm Dr. Morton’s earlier data. One further fact, however, may be noted as a result of my own study of Peruvian crania, amply confirmed by the published observations of others, namely, that while the Peruvian head unquestionably ranks among those of the microcephalous races, the range of variation among the Peruvian coast tribes appears to be less than that even of the Australian. Of this there is good evidence, based on the comparison of several hundred crania. But exceptional examples of unusually large skulls may be looked for in all races; and a few of such abnormal Peruvian or other skulls would modify the mean capacities and weights in the following table. Nevertheless the average results, as a whole, are probably a close approximation to the truth:—
TABLE X
COMPARATIVE CEREBRAL CAPACITY OF RACES